


Today I Thodin...

by chains_archivist



Category: Lexx
Genre: Boys in Chains, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 17:45:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3618657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chains_archivist/pseuds/chains_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>by Juxian Tang<br/>Kai kills Thodin<br/>Warnings: This story is an alternative variant of Thodin's death. It is not sexy or slashy, it is gory and terrible, it contains non-graphic torture and death and it can upset you</p>
            </blockquote>





	Today I Thodin...

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Dusk, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [Boys in Chains](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Boys_in_Chains), which opened in 2000 as a multifandom archive for both fiction and art, but then sadly went offline in 2005. To bring the archive back, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2014. Open Doors [posted an announcement](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/1832) and e-mailed all creators about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please [contact the Open Doors committee](http://transformativeworks.org/contact/open%20doors).  
> \--  
> Disclaimer: LEXX and the characters belong to their creators and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Comments: This story is an alternative variant of Thodin's death. It is not sexy or slashy, it is gory and terrible, it contains non-graphic torture and death and it can upset you... but I think LEXX fans are not easily upset :-) Oh well, telling the truth, I wrote it mostly to be able to say "His Divine Shadow" as many times as I wanted :-)
> 
> Summary: Kai kills Thodin.

_  
Later, when the festivities are over, you make your own, quiet celebration. The Moth takes you away from the exultant people, to the gentle slope of a great hill where you can be alone. Just you and those of your comrades who were with you in the fight - who created this victory._

_You light up a small fire and bake chestnuts and prawns for lunch and wash them down with young rose wine. The blue-haired girl nestles against you, resting her cheek on your shoulder, and the yellow swirls of flame dance in her wistful eyes, becoming flashes of light when Theo starts telling another one of his incredible stories of battles and feats... and Zev doesn't know they are all true._

_And none is dead - all strong and jovial and avid for life, laughing, teasing each other as usual, wrestling on the blue springy carpet of grass._

_The pale sun caresses your face as you lie looking how long strings of clouds flow over you in the sky. And when the dusk comes, everybody keeps so quiet, watching the huge disc falling behind the horizon. And your son gets drowsy and you take him to the Moth in your arms...  
_  
Э

The leather is rough around my wrists and ankles. I jerk trying to free myself but only feel the cuffs shrink and the first trickles of blood run over my fingers and insteps. I've known it will be like this but I've had to make an attempt. The collar around my throat is so tight that it makes every breath a torment - but not tight enough to stop it all together. I press my head to the cold metal of the panel. I know I won't leave it alive. 

Amusing... I didn't intend this day to be the day of my death, no matter what His Shadow could have thought. Well, I was wrong and he was right.

There is a dark field in my sight, with my eye gone, and that's why I don't notice him at once. Then he steps in front of me and I look at the white tranquil face with the long strand of black hair falling over it. The hazel eyes look at me levelly, meeting mine briefly and then sliding down along my body. No interest in this gaze, no enmity - nothing.

Brunnen-G... How I was mistaken. The short pang of hope when I saw him there, on the bridge, was gone - and I don't have to feel sorry. The prophecy can't bring us the victory. We will win with our own efforts.

"You will not bleed to death sooner than necessary," I can't see what he is doing but the dull sickening pain in my chest becomes a flash of agony. I gasp hitting the back of my head against the panel, trying to stay silent. The assassin makes a step back and I see the bloodied bi-dent harpoon in his hand, the wire pulling it smoothly into the sheath in his sleeve. The flows of blood are very hot leaking over my chest but he is right, it will take a while to kill me.

"His Divine Shadow ordered me to make you beg to kill you before you die," the voice is even, husky silken voice that must have sounded beautiful in singing. I lick my lips; they taste salty - cracked and bleeding again when the crust is melted.

"I beg you to kill me."

There is no humiliation in it; my pride means nothing any more - and my death is too unavoidable to bother.

"No," a small pause when he tilts his head awry slightly, as if listening to something I can't hear. "You don't really beg. I will be hurting you until you do plead."

All right. I've guessed it won't work. I shrug feeling the joints of my shoulders burning when I pull on my hands. It is going to be a long day.  
 __  
Э

_The day of your victory. The day to redeem these millions who died for it... the only day that makes you go on - with all these lives behind you._

_The broken rocks of Erico, ugly caricatures of bony hands reaching for the blazing sky. The smell of metal in the air from destroyed bodies so sharp that breathing seems impossible - and you don't want to breathe. But there is the warmth of LEXX key leaking into your palm in a golden flow. The might. The most powerful and perfect creature that is yours now._

_You think you will bring it all to the end and see how the faces of those you saved light up with gratitude and peace. You won't. It must have never been your destiny; you just wanted to hope it was. But Theo will do it. The key lies down in his hand so naturally as if it belongs there and for a moment you feel cold and sorry to part with it. Silly feelings. Theo will do it the same good as you ever could._

_He won't let you down.  
_  
Э

The assassin walks to the small table with shiny tools placed on it and I see the subtlest expression of thoughtfulness on his beautiful face. The thin long fingers soar over the sharp blades - choosing - and my gaze follows them involuntarily. I may be ready to deal with pain; but a part of my mind still screams for escaping it.

It is good that I know it won't be possible - or I would try.

The soft metal clicks when he takes the pliers and it makes me bite my lips. I make my face a mask when meeting his eyes as he comes up to me. His hand is cool when he strokes my chest; soft fingertips and steely strength hidden in them, the smooth points sliding up and down.

I am naked - I can feel it upon the journey of his palm over my body. The intimacy of the touch is harrowing - while he just explores me, looking for the place to start hurting. My lockets and amulets don't hinder him - they are gone. There was poison in one of them... but, maybe, it is better like that: how tantalizing it would be to have it so close but out of my reach.

The pliers clasp on my nipple and I close my eye.  
 __  
Э

_Have you ever thought what you will recall when you see it coming? It doesn't have to be good... or pure... or indestructible. It doesn't have to bring peace. Sometimes it can be pain._

_But you still welcome it._

_Theo's naked body in the flickering of dying fire... glistening with sweat, strong and smooth and flushed as he lies opened for you, his dark eyes smiley and adoring, his solid pecs smooth and bulging under your palms. The arch of his back as he leans towards you. His smell, his little groan as he comes - the incarnation of sex. He belongs to you - and you belong to him at these moments._

_Giggerota... her sly golden eyes and the small defiant smile, her lips, so soft and sweet despite all the blood they have tasted. She would try to kill you after the night you would have but you can't blame her for it. No more than you can blame cluster lizards for what they are doing._

_Stan... His eyes sparkling with unshed tears, his voice trembling as he gives you the vow, and your son smiles looking at him. He believes what Stan says and you believe Stan, too. Stan the traitor... You don't have time to tell him that your son is dead..._

_The green waves of energy sweeping everything on their way. Everything alive. So clean - no blood, no crippled, agonizing bodies. Just pure death and nothingness. You wish you could die like this... not bleeding and pissing yourself and squealing like a pig - as you do now._

_Cluster lizards make a clean death, too, if you have enough will to accept it. Merciless, exact machines, the coils of their bodies holding immense force, the fetid smell of their muzzles suffocating. You don't feel fear looking at them as they hit the bars just in inches from your face. And the bug bomb crawls softly from your nostril..._

_Zev... You have a lucky day, don't you? These sparkling eyes looking up at you with shyness and amazement. This soft mouth, accepting yours so generously. The kiss like this - one will like to die with it in his memory, huh?_

_And the assassin... The grace and long locks of Brunnen-G and cold agony of his touches._

_You know what you are going to recall. Recall it now, then - because the time comes.  
_  
Э

I don't want to scream; my jaw aches of how tight I clench my teeth. But eventually he gets to me - and when I cry out once, I can't stop any more. My voice is hoarse by the time when he finishes at last. Blood is cool and sticky on my chest, new trickles almost imperceptible - but they hiss when he brings the burner to the wounds - and I scream again, dizzy of beating my head against the metal and feeling sluggish blood crawling up in my throat.

He leaves me again. I don't suppose that it is the end - come on, His Shadow's assassin can do better than this. I can take more and he won't stop before I can't. 

His white hands are coated in bright scarlet and he wipes them, not because it bothers him but because it is not convenient to work with his fingers slicky. Another instrument - long narrow tweezers, so delicate that I may wonder what they will be able to do to my body. Well, I should not doubt his skills.

"How many people did you kill?" blood is sweet and thick in my mouth, not only from the bitten lips and tongue but rising from inside: the harpoon must have pierced my lung. The lowered head turns up to me, the serene transparent eyes meeting mine.

"I don't know. As many as His Divine Shadow ordered me."

"Did you enjoy it?" it hurts to speak, the collar cutting into my throat on every word - and I know these is no point in speaking. But I don't want to die before I am dead!

The full-haired head shakes slowly - a gracious flower on the thin stem of the neck - his voice doesn't falter; it never falters.

"I don't enjoy anything. I am dead."

I know it; the fate worse than any other punishment.

"For how long?"

"Time doesn't mean anything when you spend it in the cryochamber. I don't have to speak to you, Thodin the arch Heretic."

I smile. Right!  
 __  
Э

_Blood on his hands will be never so thick as it is on yours. For how many could he kill? Thousands? Working with his wrist weapon... He doesn't know what it is to look at the living planet beneath and then see it explode in the sea of fire. Men, women, children dying even without having time to understand what happens._

_Or, maybe, he knows._

_What he doesn't know is how it feels when you are the one who presses the button and destroys the whole world. Millions dead so that milliards could stay alive._

_Who do you hate enough to wish them to know?  
_  
Э

The tweezers move in my body, tearing it from inside. The jet of blood that hits the floor becomes thinner and turns into drops at last. I am too tired to cry out any more but I can't be silent, either. My sobs remind chuckle - ugly cackling laughter - and some part of my mind tells me that it sounds insane. I am not insane, however. Not yet.

"What now?" the moments when he walks back to the table to put the tweezers and choose another instrument are a brief repose - only the pain has already settled too deep to go away so quickly. It will go away only with my life.

"Now I am going to castrate you," his head is lowered thoughtfully, his voice soft and satiny, almost lulling. His profile is so clear, its fairness almost beyond imagination, the dark silk of the lock casting a long shadow on his face. The tool he chooses is the big tongs and my insides go up. I look straight in his eyes when he walks back to me.

"What is your name?"

The pause is hardly perceptible, his steps don't slow down.

"You don't need to know my name, Thodin. It is enough that I know yours."

Why do I still hope that he must be the one? Because to die of the hands of a simple assassin is too bitter? Wrong. There is no bitterness in me. It has always been LEXX - and our fight - that has mattered. Not Thodin.

"You could be the one who would destroy the Order. If you were Brunnen-G..."

No muscle twitches in his face, even his dark eyelashes don't fall. I feel the tongs clasp on my balls and before he starts, I rush out:

"What is your name, Brunnen-G?"

He draws the handles together - and when the pain washes me off with the first wave - it comes to me at last and I scream, the words replacing my cry of pain:

"You don't remember, do you? You don't remember your name?"  
 __  
Э

_"What is your dad's name? Come on, you know!"_

_Your son giggles. He just doesn't take Stan seriously. But when he does speak, it is Stan's name he says. He doesn't understand it when Stan disappears, he wants him back. He keeps asking about him even when you anathematize the traitor's name. He doesn't know how many people die because Stan wants to live._

_He gets to know it, after all. Too early to know such things - but it is his life. He learns what he has to know - how to hide, how to kill. How to choose._

_He believes in our fight instead of believing in fairy tales._

_He knows he will die. But he still calls for you when they tear his body apart._

_I am sorry I was not there for you, my little one..._

_So much for the names.  
_  
Э

The wound in my groin gushes blood on the floor. He stands in front of me, the slick tongs hanging in his hands, his soft golden eyes searching my face. Does he wonder for how long I will be able to last?

"Poor kid," my words are so muffled that it makes me smile in amazement. I know he understands me, however - his senses are sharpened - and it is not that I am the first man who tries to speak to him with his mouth full of blood. "He took your memories. Just as he takes memories of everyone he kills."

He doesn't interrupt me. His eyes are serious but with no more expression than they have held before.

"You do feel cold, don't you?" I say softly. "Memories are what make you warm. But they can be killing you, too."

"I am already dead," he says. I shake my head. He doesn't understand now... or, maybe, he doesn't want to understand. 

The tongs enter the open wound in my groin, turning there, and my brain screams but I just splash some more blood from my mouth.  
 __  
Э

_"Surrender and he will be freed."_

_You don't believe it. The son of Thodin... huh! You am not mad enough to hope they will let him go. But you need to surrender. You need to be on the Cluster on the day of the execution. It is the point of everything, after all._

_And you still think that, maybe, they will send him to the orphanage, something like this. Maybe, you will never find him again, even after your victory - but he will live._

_As if you can help but bring your own sacrifice - after all these lives you have sacrificed by then._

_He is still alive when they let you see him, blood leaking from his mouth and on his legs - and he trembles when you take him because he doesn't recognized you, he thinks you will hurt him. Only he can't fight you, can't do anything._

_It is the last victory of His Shadow - you give it to him. But your son's last breath? Can you let him have it?  
_  
Э

"Don't... don't let him take my memories as he took yours..."

For a moment I think I notice a flicker of understanding in his amber eyes - a tiny spell of time when he looks at me and it seems he sees me. Then he shakes his head, the silky strand dancing over his left eye, and his face becomes a mask of haunting beauty.

"His Divine Shadow ordered me to rip out your tongue."

I laugh.

"As if it can help him!" now I don't speak for him, I scream for the one who isn't present but still is there, listening to us, controlling. "His Shadow will be defeated. He has created his death when he created LEXX..."

The knife flashes in his hand, forced between my teeth, and it feels like a flame, not like a blade, burning through the tissues. The flow of blood is scalding, filling my throat, choking me, and I swallow it to be able to breathe. Through a thin red veil I see the pale tranquil face and the soft lips tremble slightly in the effort as he drives the gory lump out of my tongue.  
 __  
Э

_That is all, it is over, you will never be able to call the names - of Theo, of your comrades-in-arms, of the woman you could love... of your son._

_Not a bad thing, taking into account how many of them are dead?  
_  
Э

I see his hand unclenching, dropping my tongue on the ground - an ugly clot, a useless piece of meat, deader than the one who has taken it. His luminescent eye look at me.

"You can't beg to be killed now," he says quietly. Blood gurgles in my throat as I laugh.

I'd like to ask how His Shadow will like it. I can't, of course - and it would be a trashy question, after all. The fire in the back of my mouth burns unceasingly.

"But you will die all the same."

Everything dies.

I smile, settling against the cold metal. Peace... He raises his hand, the wrist turned towards me, the shiny stingers looking at me, and I catch his eyes, shaking my head furiously. 

"What do you want, Thodin?" my name is like warm honey, said in his smooth voice, and I wheeze, caring for being coherent no more than for anything else:

"Come closer..."

He listens - he understands me; I recognize this slightly absent expression as he checks the compatibility of my request to His Shadow's instructions.

"I kill you now in the name of His Divine Shadow," he says. Then he makes a step towards me.

I pull my hand. The cuff tightens around it, almost crushing the bone, the pain is blinding - but I don't stop. I yank it, flaying off the skin, dislocating the joints, with a distant part of my mind wondering whether I will free it first or the cuff will cut it off.

I have it free. Not good for anything but what does it matter? Blood is dripping on the ground from my fingers as I raise my arm and put it around his neck. 

Beautiful...

His cheek is smooth under my skinned fingers, marble-white against scarlet - and he continues to look at me with his serious eyes, the innocence in them almost childish. I pull his head to mine - these few inches that are between us - and press my bloodied lips to his, soft and cool and yielding.

It is not really a kiss - I have no tongue to thrust it in his mouth - but I hold him and he lets me - and I breathe out giving him everything I have. Theo's hard chest under my fingers, my son's dulling eyes as he dies in my hands, the strength of the cluster lizard I watch so closely, Zev's fragrant mouth... I let it out in a flow of golden light leaking from my lips to his and he inhales it - and his dark soft eyelashes tremble as if in amazement. I feel my mind getting empty - but it is a good emptiness. 

And then something comes from him to me, too. Not gold, just very pale - the images dissolved to almost imperceptible. The song that would be with me forever if I was supposed to live. My song. The moon-like face of an old woman - taking my hope, giving the hope back. The girl cupping her palms around my face.

Kai... his name is Kai.

I smile. The flash of white pain when the knife of His Shadow enters my heart.

The hissing sound of the harpoon shooting - and withdrawing again - through my ribcage, breaking its way out, with my heart forked on it. Perhaps I scream; I don't hear it any more. I don't know anything any more. My senses are leaving - and my memories have already leave me. My vision fails me - and in the last sparkle of consciousness I see Kai standing with my heart in his palms, the expression of concentration on his tranquil face slightly broken as he listens to something.  
 __  
Meet me on the other end, please.  
  
THE END


End file.
